Talkie Tuesday: San Andreas

"Now we rebuild."

Hello everyone!

Back with a movie review, and I just realized I absolutely have to get back on track with watching movies, as I seem to be running low on them. Not like there's never enough, obviously, but it looks as though, like I said way back when, I've had enough to last me until Christmas ... now it's time to start hoarding them again! 

The movie I'm talking about tonight is certainly one that I'm probably going to buy on DVD once I get around to going to the shop itself, because really, it's one of those that are sort of believable, which makes them scary, but then they go and be unbelievable, which makes them hilarious.

It's also one of those love them or hate them movies, and no in between, which is sad because if you judge it only by IMDB ratings, you might miss out on one you would actually enjoy otherwise.

Take it from me. I would have bypassed some movies completely if I'd only been looking at the IMDB ratings (like Age of Ultron, for one), and yet the movies were actually enjoyable as far as I was concerned and I liked them.

San Andreas is one of those.

San Andreas follows in the footsteps of other disaster movies that have come before it previously, like Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and there's probably a whole bunch of others. I think there's actually another movie with a similar title that was released this year as well ... but I know I wasn't interested in that one.

I was interested in THIS one because it had the Rock in it.

Yes yes, you're going to ask what the big deal is - I've talked to a lot of people who can't stand him. Me, I think he's hilarious, and he plays his roles well, when given the right ones (for example, no way can he pull off a math teacher, but a former soldier, no problem).

In this one, he plays search & rescue helicopter pilot Ray, who we first meet as he's helping a girl out of a car halfway down the slope of a canyon. We also learn that he has a daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario), who is going to college, that he and his wife are divorced, and that the new husband is played by Ioan Gruffudd.

Good, we have the basics.

Now, to work.

The company Caltech is moving to try their earthquake-predicting technology on the Hoover Dam when the San Andreas fault line suddenly goes viral and ... pretty much eats up the Hoover Dam.

Yes, you heard me right. No more dam.

This puts a hamper on Ray's plans to drive Blake to campus himself as he has to go to work, though luckily the filmmakers decided to make the daughter reasonable and she isn't throwing a hissy fit about it. Blake goes off with stepdad, and Ray goes off to work, thinking it was just one of those things, you know, that happen on this fault line. You get used to it, apparently.

No such luck.

The whole entire thing starts seizming and shuddering out, and it climbs tp a staggering 9.6 (out of 10) on the scale, making it fictionally the worst quake ever (and thank your lucky stars it hasn't happened in real life). The whole line from San Francisco to Los Angeles is pretty much blowing up without any additional help from mankind, thank you very much. Let's just say Mama Nature is rolling over during her nap and a few puny towns don't make any difference to her.

Ray realizes this is big, and bad, and heads off to grab his ex-wife and their daughter. Blake, in the meantime, has been ditched by her stepdad (who later luckily gets flattened for being an idiot) and is rescued by a cute British intern Ben and his brother Ollie. The trio then manage to contact Ray, and start the trek to someplace higher where they can be picked up.

At this point in the movie we also learn that Ray and Emma had another daughter, Mallory, who died during a rafting accident and Ray couldn't save her, which pushed everything south with the family, but also makes the parents determined not to lose Blake; they use any means necessary to get to her.

The three kids, meanwhile, go to the stepfather's office building, which is supposedly the safest ever built, and take refuge there as a tsunami (these guys usually follow earthquakes) rushes through the city. The couple find them, although we are led to believe Blake has suffocated trying to find a way out for them all, though she is revived by Ray with some very serious CPR. Ben returns the necklaces she wears (she and Mallory gifted them to one another) and they all head for high ground, finally.

This would be above San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate - or what's left of it, since I think a tanker was flattened over the poor bridge somewhere during the tsunami - and in typically American movie fashion, the flag unfurls, showcasing that the people will rebuild, and survive, as they always do.

And as we pull out, we see that the fault line has pretty much ... created an island.

Okay, yes, it's a movie you don't watch if you're easily freaked out, and this one could definitely be plausible due to the fact that the quake activity in the San Francisco area is quite strong. But at the same time, when you get to the part with the Rock racing a boat up the tsunami wave ... you kind of have to laugh, either way. All in all, however, it was grounded in enough reality to have me hooked, and the acting was pleasantly surprising.

I'd definitely recommend it, and a healthy dose of reality along with it, as well. You might even enjoy it!

xx

*umages and video not mine